White set for debut in opener

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The promising prop will add beef to the Storm pack and
has an early chance to impress.

It has taken Brett White only three impressive pre-season
performances for the Melbourne Storm for him to earn his National
Rugby League first-grade spurs, something he could not achieve in
four years with the St George-Illawarra Dragons.

Storm captain Robbie Kearns said yesterday the 109-kilogram
front-rower was everything the club desperately needed.

The Storm pack's lack of size has been cruelly exposed in the
club's past two semi-finals by the Canterbury Bulldogs, but it has
been reinvented this season.

Stalwarts Stephen Kearney, Rodney Howe, Danny Williams and Kirk
Reynoldson have departed but the off-season arrivals of White, Ian
Donnelly and Dennis Scott have beefed up one of the competition's
smallest packs.

Kearns said Dragons coach Nathan Brown had "big wraps" on White,
22, who was named on the bench for the Storm's season opener
against the Andrew Johns-led Newcastle at Olympic Park
tomorrow.

He was told that White was left to languish in the lower grades
only because two serious ankle injuries and the Dragons' seemingly
endless production line of top-line props conspired to thwart his
first-grade ambitions.

White now has earned the chance to be the reserve prop behind
Kearns and the suspension-prone Alex Chan, over competition from
Donnelly, Antonio Kaufusi and Jamie McDonald.

"He's big, he's strong, he's got the old front-rower's
aggressive, no-nonsense mentality and that's exactly what the club
is looking for," Kearns said.

"We lacked a little bit of size last year. I'm not the world's
biggest prop and (Chan) was missing a fair few weeks through
suspension.

"We felt like we were down in numbers when it came to size and
Brett White definitely adds a little bit of that to our pack this
year.

"(Nathan Brown) thought he was good enough to play first-grade
there but the fact was he was coming back from injury and (Brown)
had to give the guys who were in front of him a chance before he
gave him one."

White said yesterday there were times during the past two
seasons, in which he has played only a handful of games because of
the ankle injuries, where he believed that he would never achieve
his football ambition.

He needed a screw inserted into his left ankle early in 2003 and
received similar ligament damage to his right ankle, which ruled
him out for most of the season for the second year in a row.

But he felt rejuvenated by the move to Melbourne, where he has
secured a two-year contract.

"I was hoping for a couple of games this year but to be in the
17 for round one, especially with there being no injuries in the
front row, it's unreal," White said. "It's all I could have asked
for coming down here. It's worked out really well."